Healing the Spiritual Community

by Tim Maroney (1994)

Community is an increasingly popular ideal. For many people,
spiritual communities provide healing, support and other vital needs.
However, community has a dark side: it does not always heal, but
hurts. The profusion of books and articles lauding community
virtually ignore its negative effects. One recent volume brushes
aside all concerns as "fears of intimacy and commitment" and "the
illusion that humans are separate", magnanimously enjoining the
reader to "forgive yourself if you have fallen into either of these
illusions."[1]

The goal of this article is not to downplay the real benefits of
community, but to fill in parts of the puzzle that are omitted by its
advocates. Some common sources of problems will be discussed, then
practical solutions will be proposed.

Negative Images of the Self

People seek spiritual escapes from a feeling of inner wrongness,
unworthiness or confusion. As a result, low self esteem is common in
spiritual communities. As Roy F. Baumeister observes:

Escaping the self is centrally important in spiritual exercise.
Religious disciplines from all over the world differ radically from
each other in fundamental doctrines, techniques, promised results,
and theoretical context, but all tend to agree on the importance of
shedding the self. We shall see this message repeated over and over:
the self is a barrier to spiritual advancement.[2]

Spirituality is attractive to those who search for release from a
negative self-image because it explicitly states the unworthiness of
the self and offers the promise of a remedy.

A negative self-image can cause social problems by creating
unbalanced cravings for approval, guidance, power, sexual validation,
and so on. Sometimes it is a realistic engagement of personal
problems, but it often lends itself to self-destructive attitudes and
behavior.

People who do not like themselves often imagine that they are
under attack, externalizing their internal struggles. For instance,
such a person might hear an inquiry about their opinion on some
subject as an accusation of ignorance. They imagine that other people
view them as negatively as they view themselves. Because of their
tendency to see attack everywhere, people with low self-esteem are
also prone to jealousy and resentment. Another person's success or
happiness may be seen as a backhanded slap. Well-meaning people can
find themselves at the center of all sorts of conflicts in spiritual
communities if they do not step lightly in this minefield of
imaginary insults.

Inner attacks are also externalized in another way: "many people
with low self-esteem are critical of everyone"[3]. People who dislike themselves also tend to have
low opinions of others. Negative judgments of character are a common
source of problems in spiritual groups.

One way to escape the self is to become someone else. By creating
alternate personae, it is possible to withdraw from a painful
self-consciousness. Baumeister documents this tactic in suicidal
personalities and sexual submissives[4]. In religion, people answer to different names
and adopt different styles of clothing to take them away from their
outside selves. Members of magical communities often play fantasy
role-playing games and participate in historical re-enactments. For
some people, these activities are harmless diversions, while for
others they act out a desire to escape.

People sometimes join a group because they feel themselves lacking
in some quality and want the group to make up that lack. This can
lead to a contradiction: the ideals of a spiritual community may be
the opposite of the personalities of its members. A "compassion"
group may be insensitive and judgmental; a "kinship" group may seem
like a dysfunctional family; a "free love" group may be wracked by
jealous discord; a "free-thinking" group may be doctrinally rigid;
and so on. The group ideal is most attractive to the people who are
least able to live up to it!

Two Kinds of Trust

Spiritual groups often praise trust as a fundamental virtue, but
trust does not come easily to people. Deep trust consists of freedom
from artifice, sham and pretense: an opening and unfolding of the
inner self. Its ultimate form is enlightenment, where one exposes
one's heart to the universe without shame or fear. All veils and
illusions are dissolved, and all barriers are lowered. Even short of
this great spiritual awakening, we may drop all the barriers that we
are able to let go of in the presence of people we esteem -
that too is deep trust.

Actors on the stage have a different kind of trust. They know that
the other actors will behave a certain way, according to their
agreed-upon roles. This is not deep trust, but comfortable distance
and predictability. It is the knowledge that no barriers will be
challenged. Playing a role can reduce inhibitions[5] and so it can be positive. To reveal themselves
at all, people with low self esteem need to know that they will be
judged favorably. To have confidence in others, one must have
confidence in oneself; if our own feelings about ourselves are
negative, we assume that others will feel the same. In a support
group, everyone can be trusted to play a supportive role.

The trust of actors can lead over time to deep trust. People
gradually lower their barriers through prolonged role-playing. By
skirting around the periphery of another person for a while, one may
see that the other is safe in some regard, and relax - not
completely, but by a small, measured amount. Seeing that the first
person lowered their barriers a little, the other may reciprocate;
and so it goes. This slow, piecewise removal of character armor may
play out over years.

Some people are impatient with this process, and shed their
defenses before others are ready to see them naked. People jump
headlong into deep trust for several reasons. They may see through
pretense, so they are exasperated by artifice - they can't understand
why people maintain their façades. People with low self esteem
may find the effort of maintaining their rigid defenses exhausting,
motivating them to spring at any chance to relax. Some people know
the spiritual value of lowered barriers from personal mystical
experience and expect the same in group workings.

Many conflicts in spiritual communities result from confusing
these two kinds of trust. The esteem in which groups hold the
principle of trust can create the impression that members are
supposed to proceed directly to deep trust and skip the preliminary
stages. However, they are actually supposed to act out a role which
simulates deep trust. Failing to realize the unspoken
boundaries of the game can lead to disaster! Even when someone is
willing to trust others, it takes time for them to respond in kind.
As Nietzsche wrote:

Thou wouldst wear no raiment before thy friend? It is in honour of
thy friend that thou showest thyself to him as thou art? But he
wishes thee to the devil on that account!

He who maketh no secret of himself shocketh: so much reason have
ye to fear nakedness! Aye, if ye were gods, ye could then be ashamed
to wear clothing![6]

Humans are role-playing animals. Most art involves some sort of
artificiality, and any group project requires the adoption of roles.
In an enlightened society, people would still act, but they would act
consciously and playfully, without an intent to deceive others or
themselves. In today's society, those who are skilled at role-playing
are accepted, while those who wear their hearts on their sleeves are
scorned. There may come a day when deep trust is the rule rather than
the exception, but for now, it is precious and rare. Spreading it
freely causes resentment, especially among people with low self
esteem. The world would be better if more people opened their hearts,
but anyone who expects openness to make them popular may be
disappointed.

Judgments of Character

Initiatory groups and similar assemblies apply a model of
spiritual progress in which the member is "brought to light" by
successive degrees. In some cases the degrees are informal, while in
others they are highly structured. In either case, those who have
attained higher degree are responsible for judging the progress of
those of lower degree, and admitting them to the next level when they
are deemed ready. The focus is ostensibly on the spiritual progress
of the initiate, but as Jean La Fontaine observes:

The transformation of individuals, by the ritual which transfers
them from one social state to another, ... supports the position of
those in authority, the officiants, whether these are secret-society
officials or traditional leaders. The individuals are, to this
extent, objects used in the ritual, rather than its central focus
through which the ritual is to be explained. Initiation rituals
cannot be understood simply as a means of changing the status of
individuals.

Failure to recognize that initiation rituals are `for' those
already initiated, as much as for the novices, ... has been a
handicap in analysis.[7]

In spiritual communities, the process of judgment has as much to
do with the judges as with the people they judge. The judges gain a
feeling of power and superiority from their role. Whatever the
legitimate function of judgment in the spiritual path, these rewards
also create a motivation to judge, which can be satisfied as easily
by a false judgment as a true one - perhaps more so, since a false
judgment is a greater manifestation of power. Conversely, novices who
seek guidance in order to submit, to compensate for low self esteem,
or to vicariously wield power will be happy with misguided
assessments of their character.

Psychotherapists are supposed to be disinterested: they are not in
a position of power over, nor socially involved with, their clients,
and this removes much of the potential for conflicts of interest. A
similar ideal holds in jurisprudence: judges are expected to recuse
themselves from cases in which they have a personal interest. Therapy
and the courts sometimes fall short of this ideal, but spiritual
communities constantly defy it. The people placed in judgment over
the aspirant are often competing with them for social resources such
as power, approval and sex.

The issue of judgment is further complicated by the use of
questionable methods, such as telepathy, numerology and
astrology[8]; chiding and moralistic
concepts such as "worthiness" and "ignorance"; lack of psychological
training and disdain for psychotherapy as a competitive belief
system; the usual thirst for certainty among the religious; a
compensatory desire to judge in those who have been judged
themselves; and the quickness of people with low self esteem to form
negative judgments. Given all these factors, it is not surprising
that so many conflicts in spiritual groups involve wild accusations
about others' personalities and motives.

Even outside religion, we often impute motives to others for
self-interested reasons rather than in a sincere attempt to
understand their psychology. Nietzsche expressed one mode of judgment
succinctly:

What really are our reactions to the behaviour of someone in our
presence? First of all, we see what there is in it for us - we
regard it only from this point of view. We take the effect as the
intention behind the behaviour - and finally we ascribe the
harbouring of such intentions as a permanent quality of the
person whose behavior we are observing and thenceforth call him, for
instance, `a harmful person'. Threefold error! Threefold primeval
blunder![9]

Politics provides an example. In any country, it is considered
polite to gloss over the less admirable areas of national history.
People who decline to participate in this selective blindness are
accused of doing so for reasons of schadenfreude, taking
pleasure in the pain of others. Yet the dissidents themselves feel
that they are concerned with historical accuracy and compassion for
the victims of policy. The researches of dissidents threaten the
regard in which citizens prefer to hold their country, causing a
painful feeling of shared guilt instead of the usual national pride -
so the offended citizen concludes that the purpose of
dissidence is to spoil their pleasure: that dissidents are driven by
malice.

The same mode of judgment is common in spiritual groups. The
consequences of people's actions are confused for their motivations.
People who ask difficult questions about the group's belief system
are assumed to be doing so, not out of real philosophical interest,
but to undermine "the truth". People whose ideas or behavior seem to
threaten goals for the group are not thought of as having different
goals, but as saboteurs bent on destruction.

In order to communicate, we constantly construct models of the
minds of those around us. Judgment is not bad in itself, but we
should know that our judgments are often incorrect, and we should be
skeptical of them. A good therapist is less certain about a client's
mind after a year of therapy than a typical spiritual guide is after
a month. The therapist's training has demonstrated the difficulty of
psychological judgment, while the guide is powerfully motivated to
judge.

Judgment of character in spiritual groups usually has more to do
with a game of dominance and submission than with analysis of
personality. The more self-knowledge an aspirant may have, the less
accurate the facile judgments of the guides will seem. Disagreement
is a sure recipe for exclusion.

The Functions of Belief

A persistent theme in the twentieth century has been the crisis of
values. The subject appears in psychology, literary criticism,
sociology, and philosophy time and again. We no longer accept the
inherited values of our culture; they are impossible to square with
modern understandings. We see customs as natural phenomena without
intrinsic meaning rather than as guides for our lives. No general
defining value system has emerged to remove the resulting feeling of
anxiety.

Spiritual beliefs fill this gap by providing a context for meaning
and feeling in our lives. Their certainty acts as a defense against
insecurity. In group dynamics, the truth or falsehood of spiritual
beliefs matters little: what is important is that they remove anxiety
and promote conviction. Challenges to such beliefs may be viewed as
malicious attempts to restore the previous state of anxiety and
emptiness, provoking a defensive reaction.

The one-sidedly positive view of community discussed at the start
of this article demonstrates another aspect of the process. People
tend to be more concerned with the imagined results of words than
with their accuracy. If one has decided to support a cause, then one
becomes an advocate, brushing aside criticism and focusing on
positive attributes. It's not that criticism is necessarily false,
one thinks, but an open discussion of problems might hurt morale and
discourage converts. This unrelenting boosterism makes it difficult
to address real problems.

Not only do spiritual beliefs fill a void, they are often defenses
against reality. Baumeister shows how escape from the self involves
flights into irrationality and fantasy as a way of diverting the
focus of consciousness from meaningful material.[10] The more bizarre the beliefs, the better they
distract attention from an unpleasant complex of realistic, though
perhaps inaccurate, meanings. Eric Hoffer notes this connection
between faith and low self esteem:

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for
the lost faith in ourselves.

The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for himself,
the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his
religion, his race or his holy cause.[11]

When substitution motivates spiritual belief, defensive reactions
against perceived challenges to the belief system may take extreme,
irrational, even violent forms. Aside from such severe reactions,
groups dull critical thinking by an automatic process known as
"groupthink". The psychologist Irving L. Janis wrote that "Groupthink
refers to a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and
moral judgment that results from in-group pressures."[12] Janis developed the idea of groupthink in
reference to political fiascos such as the Bay of Pigs, but it
applies equally well to spiritual communities. The process was
summarized by Jeffrey S. Victor:

Groupthink can be seen to operate in religious groups, therapy
groups, and even corporate bureaucracies, in which the need to
maintain cooperative interaction between members creates a pressure
to conform. These in turn suppress questioning, skepticism, and
dispute about prevailing beliefs. The desire of participants to
preserve friendly relationships among themselves inhibits their
expressing points of view that deviate from informally accepted group
norms. Participants who attempt to bring issues that might cause
internal bickering and conflict are subtly chastised for their
disloyalty, or they are ostracised. The process works upon individual
perceptions of reality. Members who might privately consider some
beliefs unacceptable begin to doubt their own thinking and change
their beliefs to fit into the reality constructed by the
group.[13]

Because of all these pressures, it may make little difference
whether a spiritual community defines itself as open, tolerant, and
non-dogmatic. The anxiety associated with an absence of defining
beliefs, the position of advocacy, and the conformist pressures of
groupthink act together to suppress questions about the central
tenets of the group. The lack of a formalized system of dogma is no
guarantee of pluralism. Informality can create the false impression
that all of the members independently arrived at the same ideas, even
though the ideas may be bizarre. This apparent voluntarism, the
seeming like-mindedness of the membership, offers dissenters a
choice: either accept the system, or realize that you don't belong
here.

People decline to go along with formal and informal dogmas for a
variety of reasons. Some reasons reflect well on dissenters
(philosophical curiosity and fearlessness, the desire to repair
problems) while some reflect badly (obnoxious nay-saying, acting out
marytrdom scenarios) but the result is generally the same. People who
don't go along with the unbalanced advocacy that is the hallmark of
spiritual communities find themselves treated as threats.

Twelve Goals People Have in Groups

Comfort: To feel at ease, relaxed, secure: a
"coming home" feeling.

Approval: To get approval from others; to be part
of a support group.

Education: To acquire and improve skills and
knowledge; to get training in methods and access to
information.

Cooperation: To accomplish more than what a single
person can do alone; to practice and get feedback.

Friendship: To make friends.

Sex: To find sexual partners.

Contact: To get physical, emotional, intellectual,
or spiritual contact.

Drama: To get stimulation and excitement, even
conflict and tension.

Giving: To share skills or expertise; to give time
and energy to a cause.

Power: To achieve status, as opposed to mere
acceptance. Many people want power, but are content with
wielding it vicariously by identifying with their leaders.

Guidance: To get outside direction and guidance,
as opposed to education. This often appears together with
the desire for power: many devotees dream of assuming the
guru's role someday!

Healing: To fix something that is wrong; to get
salvation, initiation, or some other spiritual cure for a
real or imaginary ailment.

In addition to these common goals, people often join
groups to act out a scenario in which they take on a
particular role which they enjoy, which flatters their
self-image, or which satisfies some other need. Some typical
roles are guru, chela, teacher, student, scholar, sage,
maverick, priest(ess), judge, initiate, therapist, healer,
oracle, soldier, warrior, activist, social manager, tortured
artist, life of the party, and sacred prostitute.

Conflicts of Goals

Conflicts of goals are more common sources of strife than
"personality conflicts". Even when two people rub each other the
wrong way, they are likely to come to some kind of truce as long as
they believe they share the same goals.

The possibilities for conflict of goals are immense. Consider the
twelve goals identified above (see box, page [*]). There are cases in
which any one of them could conflict with any other. For instance,
one person's desire for approval could conflict with another's desire
for education - the first would try to make the community a support
group, the other a classroom.

Conflicts are especially likely when people actively disparage
certain goals. Lone wolves may look down on the desire for approval;
married people and celibates may scorn those who search for sex
partners; and so on. In fact, all twelve goals are natural human
drives, and none deserves to be treated with contempt. Even the
desire for power may be a manifestation of the desire for cooperation
- perhaps someone who truly has vision should seek a
leadership role. Failure to respect others' goals is part of the
general problem of facile judgment, already discussed.

Some goals foster conflict by themselves. There is no drama
without conflict, and the desire for drama can create melodrama. If
struggle can be focused against obstacles such as the lack of funds
or the difficulty of projects, then the desire for drama may form a
positive part of a group, but if it is directed into the social
sphere it is likely to cause problems.

Sex can be a very positive part of human life, but when several
people fish in the same sea of potential partners, jealous conflicts
are inevitable.

Power is especially problematic. This goal may be gratified by the
accomplishment of significant works, but again, it is often abused
when turned toward the group itself. In fact, the ability to abuse
power is instinctively considered its true measure. If one cannot
abuse power, one does not really have it - one merely has the same
ability to influence consensus that everyone else has. For this
reason, people often test their power by wielding it in cruel and
inconsiderate ways.

Healing from Conflicts

Having understood some of the reasons for conflicts in spiritual
communities, we can proceed to the issue of healing. Here are some
strategies to deal with the painful memories and emotions that follow
conflicts in a group.

1: Getting Past Blame

When problems become serious, there is plenty of blame to go
around. Each side may form a melodramatic and exaggerated version of
events, portraying their opponents as demons or idiots. Conversely,
people may indulge in self-recrimination, asking themselves, "Why
didn't I see this happening? How could I have been so stupid?" As
Nietzsche observed:

Guilt is always sought wherever there is failure; for failure
brings with it a depression of spirits against which the sole remedy
is instinctively applied: a new excitation of the feeling of
power - and this is to be discovered in the condemnation
of the `guilty'.... To condemn oneself can also be a means of
restoring the feeling of strength after a defeat.[14]

Blame is a common defense mechanism. To deal with a difficult
memory, a person substitutes a kind of morality play. Defensive
stories often seize on a single event as the sole cause of every
problem and replace characters with caricatures. It is easy to see
people not as the deep and contradictory processes they are, but as
heroes and villains.

Ideas of blame are not necessarily false, but they get in the way
of understanding the complex and ambiguous processes behind events.
If physicists had thought electrons were evil, we never would have
learned how atoms work. Psychology only came into its own after the
idea of "sin" had fallen into disfavor among the educated.

Some situations seem to demand a finding of fault. For instance,
if someone was thrown out of a group by the leader after the leader's
lover flirted with them, it's hard for the person who was expelled to
suspend judgment of the leader. If someone was removed after claiming
to be the reincarnation of a prophet, others are likely to view that
person with contempt. The appearance of jealousy, megalomania or
other unsavory feelings is bound to create a feeling of blame, but a
rush to judgment may oversimplify the situation. Other factors may
have been just as important.

The inclination to think of mental problems as shameful can be an
obstacle to healing. When we tell someone that they're crazy, we're
insulting them, not encouraging them to get help. In the mythical
land of Erewhon[15], a case of the
sniffles was a guilty secret and a sin, but people would casually
mention their mental treatment for shoplifting. If we considered a
neurosis as blameless as a head cold, it might be easier to deal
with.

Unfortunately, realizing we have a problem sometimes makes it
worse, because we blame ourselves for it. We often try to control
problematic thoughts by stigmatizing them: "I mustn't think that;
there's something wrong with me if I think that!" This defense is
known as repression. Its result, according to Freud[16], is to drive the thought into the unconscious
mind, where it becomes stronger. Soon it will be bubbling up in
twisted forms everywhere, together with its associated guilt.

A process of calm withdrawal from reproach is more effective.
Learn to recognize blame models, but don't punish yourself for them;
just watch them and let them go. Realize that emotions such as
jealousy, self-glorification, and malice are natural processes, no
more shameful than erosion or hunger. They are phenomena in people's
minds, including yours and mine.

2: Sublimating Negative Emotion

After withdrawal from a troubled group situation, an outpouring of
frustration and rage can create depression or obsession. One
alternative is to sublimate this energy into new projects. Creation
and destruction are two faces of one coin: the destruction of one
situation can form the basis for a new and better one, while the
creation of a new condition invariably destroys an old state of
affairs.

When one's mind is in an obsessive state, turning it towards a
different but emotionally similar object causes the obsession to fix
on the new object. Anger can fuel poetry, art, music, construction,
bodybuilding - any number of creative endeavors. Sorrow is naturally
related to compassion; after a disaster, one's own sadness can become
sympathy for the pain of everyone involved, even those on the other
side of the fence, and so result in a broader and less blameful
understanding. Disappointment can be frustrating, but it also
underscores and illuminates one's own fuzzy aspirations: the failure
of a group situation may leave one more aware of what one actually
wants from groups.

3: Knowing Yourself

Most people do not know consciously what they want from groups.
Unfortunately, what you don't know can hurt you. Before
plunging into a group with a vague idea that it will solve your
problems and assuage your loneliness, it would be wise to review the
goals people have in groups and work out how you feel about each of
them.

This is not easy, because we often deny that we desire exactly
those things that we want most. There really is no substitute for the
advice of a trained counselor. Simply talking out deeply held
feelings with a therapist invariably leads to realizations which one
would never have had in isolation. Understanding one's own drives and
assumptions can only help the spiritual aspirant, and modern
psychotherapy is more effective at providing this kind of
self-knowledge than are most spiritual disciplines. The late Israel
Regardie described himself as "adamant ... that to obtain the
greatest benefit from Magic which is as it were a post-graduate study
there should be some undergraduate work in a personal therapy. The
dividends are enormous."[17]

Self-knowledge is good in itself, but it also has effects on
behavior. Many defense mechanisms are unconscious, and uncovering
their roots often inclines one to act differently in the future. An
unconscious motive can only rule a person as long as it remains
hidden or denied. Goals are sometimes compensatory: for instance, the
desire to find sexual partners may have less to do with libido than
with a desire for validation that compensates for low self esteem.
Simply learning this may reduce the compulsive strength of the drive
and lead to more realistic goals.

In some cases, this reduction of drive strength due to
self-knowledge may leave one with little desire to participate in
groups. If one's social motivations are largely compensatory,
self-knowledge might dry them up to the point where one becomes
self-complete and self-content: a hermit. If this really is your
natual inclination, enjoy the freedom that comes with solitude!
However, choosing isolation can also be a defense mechanism against
the natural desire for community.

Prevention

Armed with a knowledge of group dynamics, and the ability to
confront sources of trouble, groups can re-examine and rework
themselves to be healthier and more healing. If your community has
had problems, don't blame it all on the personality failings of
people who have departed. Review the comments above on getting past
blame, and consider some of these ways to make your community
stronger.

1: Conscious Games

Accept certain kinds of social interaction as games. Roles can be
set out in advance and performed for a limited duration. To formalize
a support group, for instance, support might begin when a bell was
rung; no critical comments would be allowed until the bell was rung
again.

In support groups, people often attack others who are not present.
Criticizing anyone who's there is against the rules, but everyone
else is fair game. It's fine to talk about feeling bad because
so-and-so did something awful, but no one is allowed to ask
skeptically, "Hold on: how do we know you're telling the truth? Are
we being fair to so-and-so?" Members who were unfortunate enough to
miss a meeting may find themselves abruptly made unwelcome. Because
the participants do not know they are playing a game, the
judgments they form can persist after the game is over and cause
conflicts. By making the rules explicit, people are less likely to
mistake artificial role-playing judgments for real-life decisions.

2: Establishing Process

Groups of any kind are most efficient when people have
well-defined roles to play. The ideal of "process" - drawing up
procedures for decision-making ahead of time and following them
scrupulously - is as useful in spiritual communities as in business.
The less process there is in any group endeavor, the more likely
conflicts become. Groups run in an anarchistic manner, with no formal
process and no central authority, tend to be wracked by vendettas,
slander, and petty politics rather than filled with deep trust. They
are easily manipulated by fast-talking actors who know how to radiate
sincerity and appeal to personal goals. Formal process could
guarantee some thoughtful review of these actors' exciting
presentations before the group commits to them.

One of the most important processes is the procedure for conflict
resolution. Justice is not a natural result of unconscious social
dynamics; arriving at good decisions in an atmosphere of emotional
conflict requires work. Shaffer and Anundsen present a practical
procedure in their book[18].
Conflict resolution depends on re-establishing the commitment of all
parties to the goals they share, and removing the feeling that those
goals are threatened. If that can't be accomplished, then the
conflict will probably result in lasting divisions.

Perfect people might not need to create any formal process, but
people in the real world benefit from humane and consensual
structures within which they are free to play the roles they have
chosen. Within a structured (but not iron-fisted) approach, there is
ample opportunity for deep trust to develop between particular
individuals.

3: De-Emphasizing Judgment of Character

As explained above, negative judgment of character is one of the
most persistent sources of conflicts in spiritual groups. By shifting
the model of spiritual progress from a test-based to a self-paced
approach, some of the pressures that encourage negative judgments can
be reduced. In this model, individuals have the responsibility to
decide for themselves whether they have internalized the symbols and
formulae of an initiation, or achieved results from a practice, but
they are free to ask others for their help in coming to this
decision. It may take time for initiations and practices to have an
effect, but time limits can be applied impersonally. The teachers
become resources for the students rather than the scales on which
their souls are weighed.

Initiations can be refocused away from derogatory models of the
old self. Severing candidates from their old status is a necessary
part of any initiation, under the van Gennep model accepted by
anthropologists[19], but this
severing does not have to be a moralistic condemnation; it can simply
mark the passage. Exaggerated insults screen out candidates who don't
suffer from low self esteem and inflate the egos of those already
initiated. For instance, consider the "formula of the neophyte" of
Freemasonry and the Golden Dawn, as accurately described by Aleister
Crowley:

This formula has for its "first matter" the ordinary man entirely
ignorant of everything and incapable of anything. He is therefore
represented as blindfolded and bound.... It will be seen that the
effect of this whole ceremony is to endow a thing inert and impotent
with balanced motion in a given direction.... [T]he first matter of
the work... is so muddled that many operations are required to unify
it.[20]

It is worth noting that this comes from a tradition, Thelema,
which claims to be free of the "Sin-Complex"! The same deprecating
assumptions are present in many other traditions. If groups instead
performed their initiations in a way that respected both the old and
the new status while drawing a clear boundary between them, they
might find that over time their memberships would gain self-esteem
and lose their thirst for superficial condemnation.

One objection to self-paced instruction is that the mystic path is
a dangerous one, and aspirants left to their own pace would find
themselves driven mad by premature revelation. However, if this were
so, the explosive growth of mystical books open to everyone during
this century would have stocked the asylums with casualties. In fact,
according to my friends who have worked in the mental health system,
it is very difficult to find anyone who was driven mad by a mystical
path. When I have learned of magicians who went insane, even casual
investigation has revealed non-magical reasons: for instance, they
were diagnosed as schizophrenic before they began to practice, or
they became amphetamine addicts. People generally have little problem
defending themselves against disturbing spiritual insights - ordinary
defense mechanisms are quite effective in blocking out spiritual
experience. It takes work to open oneself to such things, and the
doors readily slam shut, as every backslider can attest.

4: Applying Therapeutic Resources

As mentioned above, Israel Regardie urged every spiritual aspirant
to first get psychotherapy. If a year or two of regular therapy were
a condition of membership in spiritual groups, they might find
themselves less troubled than they are today.

For people in religious groups, an outside counselor who is free
from conflicts of interest is invaluable. Because the higher-ups are
themselves involved with the social functioning and belief system of
the group, it is dangerous to be entirely frank with them, and most
people have more sense than to try.

One possibility that makes good economic sense is to sponsor
professional group treatment as part of the community. The objection
could be raised that spiritual groups serve many of the same purposes
as therapy groups. However, they do so in a way that is fraught with
defensiveness, conflicts of interest, and lack of empiricism. It is
instructive to contrast Eric Berne's forthright and self-critical
discussion of the pitfalls of group treatment[21] with Shaffer and Anundsen's cheerleading for
community. Therapists have long cultivated research into the problems
of their methods, while communities treat such inquiries as threats.

5: Separating Activities by Goal

Consider the fact that people use Christian churches to find
sexual partners. This appears hypocritical, given the disdain for
sexuality that is part of the Christian tradition. Yet churches that
fail to provide an outlet for this natural urge may find their
repression having the opposite effect, turning their holiest
ceremonies into virtual singles bars. Rather than engaging in a
destructive process of denial, most churches sponsor social
gatherings as an outlet for this drive and others.

More generally, the potential for conflict of goals may be reduced
by separating activities according to goal. People who are interested
in a spiritual community for educational reasons do not necessarily
want to endure an hour of social chatter to get an hour of
instruction every week, for example. The goals of contact and
approval can be separated from the goals of education and guidance;
this will enable the group to serve more people, rather than driving
away people with more limited goals. A healthy group should satisfy
most of the goals people have for communities, but it should not
require people to participate in activities that are of little or no
interest to them. Otherwise, they are bound to become frustrated,
perhaps even to divorce themselves from the community altogether.

6: Widening the Scope of Belief

Spiritual communities in the West give lip service to freedom of
belief, but this usually only means that choices are presented in a
few clearly identified areas. For instance, some groups grant
latitude on the afterlife, but are adamant about the accuracy of
astrology and the extrapsychological reality of spell effects.

True liberalization is difficult. Even people who do not suffer
from low self esteem often confuse disagreement with insult, and
introducing flexibility and ambiguity into a group's belief system
undercuts the goals of guidance and power. It is important to
recognize that a declaration of liberty does not create freedom of
thought: informal required beliefs can be harder to address than
formal dogmas. Activities are necessary.

Burning your holy book is unlikely to help; a ritualized disavowal
acts as a safety valve, much like the Christian Feast of
Fools[22], and strengthens the
reigning beliefs. Instead, participate in interfaith dialogue. Reward
challenging perspectives by publishing them and discussing them in a
collegial way. Sponsor friendly debates between opposing points of
view, and list pros and cons of central tenets. Most of all,
encourage individuals to accept disagreement and rely less on
certainty as part of their spiritual growth.

Conclusion

People hurt by spiritual communities may find themselves abruptly
friendless and isolated. An improved understanding of the factors
that predispose groups towards conflicts and problems may assuage
their pain. Catastrophe can be a spur to gain insight. And of course,
more self-aware communities are less likely to accidentally hurt
their members. If individuals and groups can transcend the
defensiveness that results from blameful and moralistic approaches to
group dynamics, they will find themselves better able to reap the
rewards of community, and even to derive benefits from problems and
failures.